City Hall approves BK roads

City Hall approves BK roads

REPRESENTATIVES of the company behind the development of the city’s Boeung Kak lake area held closed-door meetings with municipal officials on Monday, and gained approval for the construction of three access roads to the secretive project, officials said.

Ty Dory, chief of the municipality’s Office of Land Management Affairs, said that officials on Monday approved three of the 12 roads presented at a meeting earlier this month, including those linking the Boeung Kak area with Street 106 to the east and Street 169 to the south, the latter via a US$7 million overpass spanning the railway.

The third road will extend west close to Neak Von pagoda before linking up with Streets 608 and 616.

“The three roads will be established soon, and they will help to ease traffic jams in the city in the future,” he said, and added that there had been no determination of when construction work on the roads would begin.

Following a similar meeting earlier this month, Sok Penhvuth, deputy governor of Daun Penh district, told the Post that the city had planned 12 new roads, each 20 to 50 metres wide, to link the 133-hectare development to the rest of the city. He said four major access routes would link the project site to Street 70, Monivong Boulevard, Russian Confederation Boulevard and Mao Tse Tung Boulevard.

A shroud of secrecy has surrounded the Boeung Kak lake project since the city signed a 99-year lease agreement with obscure local developer Shukaku Inc, which is owned by Lao Meng Khin, a senator for the Cambodian People’s Party.

Reporters were barred from Monday’s meeting, and residents say they are still in the dark about plans for the project, which is expected to result in the eviction of more than 4,000 families from the lakeside.

Ing Navy, 45, a representative of the lake’s Village 24, called for more transparency from the company about the construction of new infrastructure that could affect local residents.

“We first need to have negotiations with the company owners or their representatives with coordination from the city and base authorities before they build new roads or expand [existing] roads,” she said.

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